R.P. Barr

Quote: The Ideal Religious Fanatic

Speaking of Rhode Island founder Roger Williams—the subject of her recent book, The Wordy Shipmates--on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, author Sarah Vowell said:

 "He’s the sort of ideal religious fanatic.  He believed that everyone who disagreed with him over his puritan views were going to burn eternally in Hell.  And, he thought that was punishment enough, and so, on earth, we could all live together….I thought if there were more religious fanatics like that nowadays, there might be fewer car bombs.”

Quote: White on War

 

Young men who had gone out even in the first joy of marriage, to be killed on dirty battle-fields like Bedegraine for other men’s beliefs: but who had gone out voluntarily: but who had gone because they thought it was right: but who had gone although they hated it.  They had been ignorant young men perhaps, and the things which they had died for had been useless.  But their ignorance had been innocent.  They had done something horribly difficult in their ignorant innocence, which was not for themselves.

                              --T. H. White, The Book of Merlin

Ian Fleming is 100

Today is the one hundredth birthday of author and creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming.  I’ve read all of the Bond books (at least all of the ones written by Fleming—another author was contracted to continue the series).  And, I have all of the movies on DVD.  I can’t say that Fleming was the best author of his time—Live and Let Die is horribly awkward—but he pitted his hero against megalomaniacs who were trying to take over the world.  This elevation of the enemy as much as the sophistication and invincibility of the hero made the Bond franchise the success it became.  After Hitler and Stalin, the world did not have trouble believing in madmen who had not only the will, but the means to subjugate the rest of humanity.  Fleming tapped into this fear and made it entertaining.  He changed the nature and size of adventure fiction.

 

A few years ago, I visited the place where it all began.  The house where Fleming wrote Dr. No, the first in the series, is now a café.  It hugs the side of the Blue Mountains in Jamaica, 4,200 feet above sea level.  Access is via a former goat path, now mostly paved but still steep and too narrow for two cars to pass without both going onto the shoulder—when there is a shoulder. The asphalt is pitted with gaping potholes and sometimes has sections washed away. But, for those who make it to this modest structure, it is all worthwhile.  Far above the bustle of the island, and in the cool air of the mountain, surrounded by lush green foliage, the Gap Café, as it is now called, is still a wonderful place to get away from distractions.  Blue Mountain coffee, the best in the world, is served in individual French press coffee pots on white table linens.  Outside the windows, hummingbirds hover around feeders.  I don’t know what to believe about Fleming’s wartime adventures or his romances, I envy his choice of a place to write and appreciate this opportunity to recall and share a fond memory.